For some reason I keep getting errors trying to post these "post body", bear with me.
120 days ago(+1)(-1)
flats + the eyes. The eyes are the most important bit - if they look off, the whole thing looks wrong.
33 days ago(+2)(-3)
Hoi. I see the game have a lot of inconsistences on art of the same character.
Like resolution, details and similar. And that are some similar result of ai generated images. Can explain about that???
thx
32 days ago(-3)
Well, I'll go through them one by one:
Resolution: When I started making this game, I was coming from exclusively making battle sprites. These, in Essentials, are 96x96 px - so that was the canvas that I was just the most familiar working with. The earliest portraits in this game all use that model (as do the unused Leaf portraits from ~2023 in the files). As I continued to step away from battle sprites & into my current style, I settled into my current default size of 108x108 px. But that canvas size isn't hard set. There are characters with large hair, or weird posing, or any number of reasons that I extend the canvas out by a few extra pixels. This is probably the difference that is the easiest to see: in my old work, 96x96 was IT. If something hit the border, that was that - no cropping, because I didn't have that luxury for battle sprites. It was, again, what I was used to.
...I've also just gotten better at fitting things into my default canvas, anyway.
I'm assuming you're not accusing the portraits that are very obviously intentionally taller than the rest? The ones that stretch from the thighs up are 108x~160px... but these ones I am very liberal with extending/shortening if I feel like it will better serve the piece. I've got space to spare in-game, so if the piece becomes better by giving myself those extra pixels, it makes total sense to me to do it.
Details: I think this is the change that is most prevalent in my progression. If you look at battle sprites, the color palette is very limited, and shading is blocky with the occasional checkerboard shading. It very quickly became apparent that this didn't look great for the portrait sprites, but I didn't yet know what I needed to change or even how to change it. My solution was to use photoshop as a crutch & overrely on the pencil tool's ability to hue jitter, scatter, etc., and then come back with some blur and layer styles. I'll keep it a buck, looking back at some of the early stuff in this game is hard for me now. There's a lot that I would do differently if I revisited those sprites today. I think if you look at the sprites chronologically, you'd be able to pick apart a pretty clear sequence. The tough part of viewing this game as a whole package is that you may not necessarily have the context that the first demo for this game was in "development" (and I do use that term loosely, because it mostly refers to the art & possession battle mechanic) since the end of 2023. I've had a lot longer than I think a lot of people realize. Here's a good example I can give you. The XY Ranger's Gastly portrait is one of the earliest surviving pieces in the game. It was done, at the earliest, in spring of 2024. The second portrait is an upcoming portrait of the same character that I did two weeks ago. I think it explains a lot:
Consistency: This is a fair thing to point out. Details, especially small ones, are tricky to place when you are working with canvases this small. My job - in my opinion - with pixel art of this scale is to get things close enough that your imagination does a lot of the heavy lifting for me. Moving details by even one pixel completely changes how a piece looks at this size. Some of that, though, is definitely a skill issue on my end. But, like all skill issues, it is one that I would argue I'm demonstrably getting better at as time passes.
As far as the "and similar" goes, I'm really not sure where to go with that. I think the biggest takeaway is that you are seeing a huge chunk of my timeline in this game. I've redone some of the most egregiously mid sprites already, but a large portion of that early work will likely be memorialized in the game forever, for better or for worse.
32 days ago(+2)(-2)
Hoi. Am actually can't found a way to express myself polite.
But after playing it on vc whit friends (There told me i have putting too much effort lmao).They coincided it's looks like AI generated (We don't coincide if it Downscaled or Traced).
But first of all. I need to complain you about the map desing. It's feels really good, cool and enjoyable; and the idea of "Stealing" the mons of battle npc is funny sometimes.
But all that is shadowed for the art.
If move a pixel change a lot in that resolution. Why you don't cared about fix it?
Did you know you CAN'T have a patreon for PKMN Essentials games?
Is there an actual reason to hidde the portrait and scenes art?
If it's made from 2024 (By the metadata). Why it's so green and don't fixes the arts problems?
Am also an artist. Can told
-Resolution: Isn't an actual problem. All the person who knows a lil bit of pixel art know "Less is more". Because you are not doing a detailed human. You want to evoke the feels of a human figure. You can use a lot of different resolutions, but even whit that. Why are cutted outlines? If in context of like the next "They are on knees". Why looks she stand up and you cock in like 5 ft from the floor
Details: Is normal not have the same mount of details on every single image. But the mount in there are the same AI like gemini uses. AND THERE SO MUCH FOR PIXEL ART. You don't need brushes, layer modifiers, etc, etc. Less is more. But ok. i give a pass... Why from this the other hand dissapears, The hand is broke, the cloth is'nt the same as the previous and the next, the rock have different shading, SO MANY DITTERING, where end the torax and start the hip from the right side and the same problem as the previous image. The pose is stand up.
Consistency: The big problem of the art. The error a human can fix, but AI can't. Every portrait and scene have the enought differences to make it weird. And make me say "It's AI traced. Need to show to the guys".
-Leaf: Marked lips on handjob, her skin come white on hipnosis but is darker in normal, the cloth in the neck go up and down an even in the scene looks sooo up, the color of the cloth changes from darky blue to cyan, the shadow change (If know a lil bit of draw theory on general, that don't happens
Ranger: Badget on the hat shadow and why is blurred? she become red in the hand job, the eyes color change (Also happen whit the red head), the neck of the cloth is thin or thicc and bonus Leaf and Ranger looks have PTSD eyes.
-Fancy girl: Cloth type and color change, the hair color isnt the same, the rock form, shading and color change, the ribbom size change and the hand dissapears.
And the last one am gonna mark for now, Lillie: Not same color of hair, gain and lost 12 years, the aged up is an already maked before art and just as the tip of the cake. The angry expression is usual of AI. Gemini in particular. Literal can search "Angry anime girl gemini AI" on google and can found the same expresion on a demon slayer. I know it bcz there other games whit AI slop and youtubers of leafy type who use the EXACT SAME EXPRESION on they AI gen avatar
I know you not gonna say "YEAH YOU FOUND AM SOO SAD". But be honest whit the content. And i don't want you delete all.
JUST BE HONEST.
And don't think about report or delete the coment. bcz this is your own content on your own game.
32 days ago(+1)(-2)
Hoi. It's okay, I don't feel the need to be polite either.
Holy shit, that was so many words to say absolutely nothing substantial. Bear with me as I try to decipher what you're actually saying here.
1. "If move a pixel change a lot in that resolution. Why you don't cared about fix it?"
I apologize because I truly don't know what you're even saying here, so I'm going to take my closest guess. What it appears like you're asking is "why is the art not perfect?" shit man, I dunno. I do my best to try and bat a thousand, but I'm unfortunately still just a dude.
2. "Is there an actual reason to hidde the portrait and scenes art?"
If you've read just about anything I've said, or seen the measures I took to prevent cheating in this game, it might not surprise you to learn that I care about people experiencing the game as I created it. Especially for the 0.2 update - it is intended to be a huge surprise when Deoxys appears. Hiding the images that 100% spoil that appearance is in line with my whole design philosophy. I want folks to play the game.
3. "If it's made from 2024 (By the metadata). Why it's so green and don't fixes the arts problems?"
This seems like another "why is art not perfect" question, to which I again respond: shit man, I'm trying. Still actively learning & getting better at this.
4. "Why are cutted outlines? If in context of like the next "They are on knees". Why looks she stand up and you cock in like 5 ft from the floor"
"Cutted Outlines" I'm assuming refers to why I draw scenes with a cutoff at the bottom. The answer, shockingly, is that I want to be efficient with my time and effort. If I make a scene where the player is not going to see below the knees, why the hell would I draw below the knees? Your own example (the XY Ranger Abra handjob) is flawed. I'm already cropping off the top of the sprite to show the scene with the text box, so tell me how it would be at all beneficial to waste time and effort on anything below the knees? It isn't at all the focus of the scene.
You are right to call this scene out as having an error, though, but since it is related to eye color I'm going to leave that for when I get to that whole "argument".
4a. "Why looks she stand up and you cock in like 5 ft from the floor"
Because the focus of the scene isn't on the dick, nor the guy. If it was, he'd probably be in the scene, yeah? I apply the rule of cool liberally. If I want a handjob scene that displays most of the woman's body, I'm going to elevate the player to however high he needs to be standing in order to make it happen. Because the player is invisible in scenes (minus the dick), perhaps he is sitting on a nearby piece of elevated ground, or the bridge, or levitating five feet in the air for all I care. That's not the point of the scene, and I'm not ever going to let that get in the way of showing off the parts of the body I want to show off. If that breaks your immersion, I'm sorry, but it's a choice I make very consistently.
5. "Is normal not have the same mount of details on every single image. But the mount in there are the same AI like gemini uses. AND THERE SO MUCH FOR PIXEL ART."
...the pixel art is detailed?
Thanks???
5a. Hands:
Hands are tough. Believe it or not, AI is not the only thing that struggles to draw hands in a roughly 9x9 pixel area. For the scene in particular you brought up, I remember trying half a dozen different things before I said fuck it, I'm going to leave her hand completely in shadows as if she's resting it pointing backwards above her hip. If you really are an artist as you claim to be, you may recognize the feeling of trying something so many times and not getting it quite right, so you say "fuck it, good enough" and move on. Also, along with 4a, the off hand isn't the point of the scene. I can, in my opinion, afford to say "fuck it, good enough" because it isn't the focal point. I'm not anticipating people viewing the scene to want to focus on that, so I'm okay with skimping a little bit there.
1/2
32 days ago(+1)(-2)
6. All the Leaf portraits.
I actually agree with you about consistency in so much of my earlier work for this game. My original flow had me looking at two references for each piece: - the official art I was referring to - whatever facial expression photo ref I was trying to hit
Something important is left off of that list, and I didn't realize that it was a problem until pretty late. I didn't refer back to any base piece that I did except to grab colors. So I'd do a piece that I felt satisfied with, go about my life for days, or weeks, or occasionally months before circling back to do my next one, where I'd take a stab at the next expression.
I think consistency is the biggest improvement I've had, and it starts to show itself blatantly on everything done after the original demo release. So many of your points boil down to you looking for AI tampering where a simple "this guy hadn't quite figured out what he was doing yet" also fits. You're going to find whatever signs you're looking for.
But take all of the new Leaf scenes, or all of Lorelei - I don't think you'll be seeing these same consistency issues. My flow has changed to add that critical third piece - the original reference of mine that supersedes even the official art I'm referencing. How I interpret and adapt official art can change day to day, but having my own piece to refer back to has made it much easier to stay consistent, and I'd argue there are already dividends of that in the game.
7. "the eyes color change" This is the error I was referring to earlier. I had my colors on the wrong layer and when I used the color overlay to change the hair colors, it got the eyes too. That error, to my knowledge, is present in approximately one scene out of all of them, and slipped through testing.
And I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you're not accusing the eyes changing to pink as an error. If that's the case, you've truly lost the plot.
Also, the PTSD eyes again just sounds like another case of you not liking the art meaning it is AI generated.
8. XY Ace hair color change. You're half right. Its actually way more than the hair color changing. The original XY Ace portrait was awful. Like truly horrendous. It was the first sprite that ever got updated after the original demo release, and I took the time to update all of her colors to be, in my opinion, easier on the eyes. Her original hair color, still present in the one that I didn't update, felt radioactive to me. So in the update, I softened it considerably and that's the palette she has had ever since.
9. Your entire point about Lillie. You have, once again, managed to find an example of a character who was given an updated portrait after release. It is the closest example we have in-game of my vision for that character. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd attribute the sprite being considerably better to the fact that I did the new one two years after the others. If it was the same quality, I'd probably need to pack it up and reconsider my choices.
9a. The angry "gemini" face where the fuck do you think gemini gets its material from. >:( has existed for a lot longer than I've been around. I'm not even sure how to further elaborate on this point, like bro. You're so on guard to detect AI that you attribute everything to it. You are, of course, more than welcome to join the Discord where it is a pretty long-running joke that I'm constantly spoiling upcoming content by livestreaming myself working on it... which includes art.
"I know you not gonna say "YEAH YOU FOUND AM SOO SAD". But be honest whit the content. And i don't want you delete all.
JUST BE HONEST.
And don't think about report or delete the coment. bcz this is your own content on your own game."
"What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."---Billy Madison
32 days ago(-2)
So let me get this straight:
The dev LITERALLY JUST TOLD YOU, WITH EXAMPLES that this has been in development for years and they have grown as an artist over that time, and you are using "visual inconsistencies" as "evidence of ai use"? As they literally just told you, there will be inconsistencies since some of these sprites were made years apart. So, if you want to point fingers of ai use, make sure it isn't something they literally just explained. It makes you look dumb.
An example, to show you what I mean:
Me: You are obviously far too young to have an itch.io account and be looking at 18+ games, because your spelling and grammar is atrocious.
You, probably: I'm writing this from a phone and don't have autocorrect or something
Me: But bad spelling and grammar is a sign of an 8-year-old.
Does that make sense to you?
Also, to address a few of your specific concerns:
Too much detail? Really? In a game where the only time you see anything more than an 8bit sprite is in a large portrait, that the player is specifically meant to look at, they use too much detail? Of course they used detail, if they didn't then how would you tell people apart? It's not meant to "evoke the feels of a human figure", it is meant to be a specific, detailed portrait of a specific person.
Oh no, the hand is gone! Oh wait, it's in their sleeve. No object permanence - that "you are far too young to be on here" thing was a joke, but the amount of evidence just keeps growing. The colour changes a little? Oh no, the portraits don't have the exact same hex code as each other, the world is ending.
The reason her skin is lighter in the hypnosis scene? They aren't wearing their hat, which makes shade on their face in the others.
Their eye colour changes when they get hypnotised? Yeah, that's on purpose. If it was only one or two people in a few frames, sure, but it happens literally every single time you hypnotise someone.
What on earth do you mean, PTSD eyes? What, their eyes show emotion? That's the sign of a good artist who knows how emotion works, the exact opposite of an AI.
And for the icing on the cake: Your point about them having the same expression as a character you found online. Have you ever heard the saying "Great Minds Think Alike"? Or maybe that's the way people draw that emotion because that's how it looks. Have you ever drawn a circle? Well, you obviously used AI because it looks like this other image of a circle because THAT'S HOW YOU DRAW A CIRCLE. Also, have you ever heard of reference images? Also, no, they don't look the same. Look at the mouth: The google one doesn't have their mouth tilt downwards at one end. If they were exactly the same, sure, then there would be reason for this complaint, but there isn't, so there is no reason you should be complaining right now.
One final thing:
You say to "JUST BE HONEST."
The problem is, what if they are being honest about not using AI?
They said that, and you are telling them to stop lying. So, if they are telling the truth and you are saying they are lying, what do they need to do to prove they are telling the truth? If you will only accept the answer you have already decided is true, the only answer they could possibly give to satisfy you is to lie and falsely confess. Say, that sounds really familiar... Have you ever heard of the Salem Witch Trials, or the Red Scare? The basic story is that innocent people were accused of something, and there was no way to prove they were innocent, and so they were killed unless they lied.
The outcomes to this are:
Idite tells you again that this is AI-free, you don't accept it and keep finding "evidence" of AI, and this amazing game gets removed because there is too much suspicion of AI use.
OR,
Idite lies, tells you there is AI, and this game gets removed because there is a confession of AI use.
The only outcome that doesn't make this entire community mad at you is if you drop it.
So, from the entire community, kindly shut the fuck up.
32 days ago (-1)
Posts like these always make me lose faith in specific communities. It's not the first time idite has been accused of using AI. There was another guy on a different website who used an AI image detector as proof for his accusation, and idite just ran an official sprite of Charizard through the same tool which came back as nearly 100% AI positive.
I think you're spot on in regard to the fact that these types of people come looking for only one answer. They aren't looking for clarification, they are looking for validation for an answer they have already determined in their heads. Idite goes through all this effort to defend himself, but some of these people are so lazy, they can't even bother to run their witch hunt essays through spell check. I'm being genuine when I say this, trying to decipher what OP was attempting to say was actually painful.
There's a lot of artists on the discord server, and although I'm not an artist, I'm slowly starting to learn how to properly recognize AI generated pixel art. To set the record straight, most if not all of those artists can accurately tell if something is AI generated, and they wouldn't hold back on idite. They'd be the first people to call idite out if there is even a possibility of any of these claims being true. It's hard to believe this person's claims of being an artist, considering how lacking their judgement is in comparison to all the artists I've had the pleasure of interacting with. If they really are being genuine, I hope they don't double down because they would look even more foolish than they already do.
Idite puts so much work into this game, and I always hate when people pull out these wild accusations or complain about a game they have the privilege of playing for free, trying to impose their will on idite when they don't like how he made a specific part of the game. The reason updates take so long is also self-explanatory. It turns out having to manually draw all these scenes takes literal months, who would have thought??? If AI was ever involved, the wait would not be this long. I don't think people realize the timeline this game has been running on. I suspect the next thing someone will try to use to accuse idite of using AI, if they haven't already, is inconsistent art styles that can attributed to idite attempting to get other artists on board with the project.
31 days ago (+1)(-2)
Am just not in the mood for a cause of honest work. But yeah... There no way to proof am an artist... Ups my works slipped
Just started whit pixel art like 4 mounth ago. and am into vore all is mainly on 96x96 :P